Alan Bradley is an acoustic guitarist with 35 years experience. He invests his time creating fresh music, in several, sometimes unusual styles.
What kind of music does he play? Acoustic? Blues? Rock? New age? Folk? Jazz? Fusion? All of the above, and more . . .
It's hard to categorize fresh music. Each of his song seems to be a different style, and each song will grab you in a different way. It makes you wonder why no one else is performing this kind of diversely playful music.
Alan does not write your standard "4-chord' songs, like most musicians. What he does is to . . .
Well, let Alan tell you . . .Hi. People sometimes ask me 'How did you learn all that stuff?", and I have to laugh. Practice, practice, practice . . . .
I started playing guitar in the early 70's. I never had a lesson in my life;
a friend showed me 4 chords: Am, C, D, and E . . . that was enough for me to play 2 songs. I needed more.Music is emotion, and we all have hundreds of emotions. One can’t reproduce many emotions with only 4 chords, eh?
So I learned new chords from song books and chord-sheets, then from ‘within’ . . .
While looking for the right sound, I often tripped across new chords on the fretboard. And - new sounds will unlock new styles of music.I write and play what I feel.
Different variations on a chord will contribute different variations of emotion to a song.
The more chords one learns, the more emotions and styles of music one can reproduce.
A few years back, I got tired of playing music. I found that a lot of bands were just copying each other, and, it seemed that 95% of songs were composed with rudimentary chords, that a novice guitarist could learn most songs within half an hour. In a word, I was: bored.I needed fresh directions.
I was thirsty, and I needed to drink from the fresh stream of inspiration, instead of the stagnant pond of mediocrity.Now, decades later, I switch between several hundred chords. THAT is the main reason why no one elses plays the music I play: they just don't know the chords, yet. It tool me a long time to learn them, too . . .
Learning can be (and should be) a life-long practice. While looking for the right ‘flavor’ chord for a song, I still stumble on new sounds.Over the years, I went through my share of electric guitars. But the ‘electric sound’ can cover up a lot of mistakes, and I found that the acoustic guitar is more challenging to master. With an acoustic guitar one can hear all 6 strings, not just a 'blob of sound.'
Over the years, my sense of musical appreciation widened and I played more kinds of music. I have over 50 original songs, now . . . most of them difficult to play . . .
If I play 5 songs, you'll very likely hear 5 different styles of music . . .
